


Pilgrimage

by alexis (of_too_minds)



Category: Dark Angel
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-07
Updated: 2014-02-07
Packaged: 2018-01-11 13:13:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1173475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/of_too_minds/pseuds/alexis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some wounds never heal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pilgrimage

Today was the second of his twice-yearly pilgrimages.

 

October 21.

 

Her deathday.

 

Cold sunlight dappled the marble tombstone. A magnificent bouquet covered the grave in a rainbow of colours and scents; testament to how dearly she was missed by her loved ones.

 

He laid his own meagre offering on the cold headstone. A single red rose, its petals bright as blood against the pale marble. A fitting deathday gift -- the symbol of a love he never should have felt.

 

Tears burned behind his eyes and he let them come, uncaring who might witness his weakness.

 

“Rachel.” His voice broke on her name. He swallowed convulsively, his eyes shut against the mute accusations screamed at him by the tombstone.

 

This grave shouldn’t be here.  **She**  shouldn’t be here. She belonged in the sunshine and the air, not the cold dark ground.

 

“I loved you, Rachel. I loved you so much.” The words tumbled out of his mouth without conscious direction; the tattered confession of a grief-ravaged heart. “You were so beautiful. So happy. So genuinely happy. I didn’t know anyone could be so happy just to be alive. And when you smiled at me... God, I’d’ve done anything to see you smile. It made  **me**  feel alive too, just to see it. Do you know that? Do you have  **any** idea what you did to me, what you meant to me? You changed me, Rachel. You made me feel. You were the first human who was ever kind to me.” His proud, beautiful head dropped to his chest, his words muffled by the sobs choking his throat.

 

“And I killed you. I  **murdered**  you. Because I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand how much I loved you. I didn’t get it. Not until it was too late. You died... because of me. All because of me. Because I dared to love you.”

 

Pain burned through him; as sharp now as the day he watched helplessly as her head smacked against the concrete driveway; as raw as the night he cradled her comatose form in his arms. He fell heavily to his knees, his legs unequal to the task of holding him upright. “Oh God Rachel, I’m sorry. I should’ve tried harder; I should’ve fought them. I should’ve found a way. It should’ve been me. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he whispered over and over in a broken litany of grief and guilt. Tears slid from his chiselled cheekbones to water the grave of his dead love.

 

The wind gusted, tugging on his clothes before speeding past him to ruffle the bright autumn foliage and the long brown hair of the girl concealed in the trees that rimmed the graveyard. Bowing her head, the girl averted her gaze, regretting the strange impulse that brought her here and made her privy to a scene she was never meant to witness.

 

She wanted to be free to hate him, to despise him for his actions that led them both to this graveside. He was a killer. He charmed a sweet, trusting, naive girl into loving him and then betrayed her. He deserved to suffer for his sins.

 

Didn’t he?

 

She wanted to be indifferent to his pain, not burdened by this strange aching pity that tore at her heart. He had truly loved Rachel; that much was painfully obvious. It was no sham. And it went against everything she’d come to believe about him. He wasn’t supposed to care. He wasn’t supposed to think about anyone but himself. He wasn’t supposed to be the sort of man who would weep over a dead girl’s grave.

 

How could she go on hating him now, the way she was obliged to?

 

He clambered wearily to his feet, hands shoved deep in his pockets, shoulders hunched, face downcast and eyes averted. “I loved you, Rachel,” he vowed. “I swear I loved you. You have to believe that.” He turned and trudged away, his final words carried on the wind to the girl waiting in the shadows.

 

“Forgive me.”

 

She abandoned her hiding place and walked slowly to the grave, pale and silent as a shadow. Ignoring the larger bouquet at her feet, she reached out with one tentative hand to caress the rose. A thorn amid the leaves pricked her soft skin and a single drop of her blood fell and stained the marble.

 

She slowly dropped her gaze to stare in morbid fascination at the chiselled writing on the tombstone. At the name that used to be hers, before she woke from the coma and her father forced her to change it to hide her from her would-be killer.

 

One delicate hand floated up from her side to touch her precious locket. The locket he kept for two years and then returned the night she finally woke to life. It was irrational, but part of her feared that if it left her neck again she’d slip back into the waiting darkness and take up her rightful place in that empty coffin beneath the tombstone that bore her name.

 

With a soft whimper she spun away, unable to bear the sight of the grave that might have been hers. She shouldn’t have come here. She shouldn’t have given in to this morbid fascination with her ‘death’.

 

Was any of this real? Was she real? Was she alive in the weak autumn sunlight? Was she still in that hospital bed, dying and yet unable to die, dreaming of a life and a love that might have been hers?

 

Or was she dead and buried and laid to rest in the cold hard ground?

 

She needed to know. She needed to hear the truth, from the one man on this Earth who could –- would -- tell her.

 

“Simon!”

 

But the uncaring wind snatched her voice and blew it away, and he turned out of the cemetery gate and vanished from her view.

 

She buried her face in her hands and let her tears water her grave.

 


End file.
